Quote Originally Posted by Emoni
There are some REALLY wonderful sites in Japan if you love nature, even if you only casually observe it is easy to appreciate.
Yes, I do not deny that and also appreciate them.

I know very few American’s who maintain gardens, and if you look at cities like New York or LA, I don’t see an increased desire to appreciate nature.
Well, that may be a inter-Western cultural difference (there are hundreds of them). Belgian and British people tend to love gardening. In fact, there was a Japanese-style pond with a Japanese momiji and European cherry tree (among many other trees, bushes and flowers) in my house when I was a child. I think Belgians and Brits have at least as much interests in nature, plants, trees, etc. as the Japanese. In fact, few people would be happy to have a house without a nice, well-tended garden, with parterres, flowers around the house, etc.

Maybe that's why they don't need to go far away to enjoy nature. In such small countries anyway, I would be unthinkable to take the place for 1000km (e.g. Kansai to Hokkaido, or Belgium to Italy/Norway) just to see autumn leaves, as the Japanese do. I wonder if as many Japanese would do such things (travel to Hokkaido to watch koyo) if the media did not advertise for it so much. Japanese people tend to be easily influenced by publicity, and once something becomes popular, everybody follows.

Look at India, they have some of the most crowded spots in the world right now and there isn't nearly as strong desire to go on nature trips as in Japan.
That's because there very little nature to comtemplate in India (and no seasons, except in the distant Himalayan region). I travelled 5 months around India, and I couldn't find any notable natural attraction. As you said, it's very crowded. But it's also dry, with deserts (that would be the best "natural attarction") in the West, with some jungle in the East, but mostly cultivated plains with just a few trees here and there.